Eltham Palace

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North view of Eltham Palace

Eltham Palace is a mansion in the London borough of Eltham in the Royal Borough of Greenwich . It is one of the currently uninhabited royal residences and is owned by the Crown Estate .

Eltham Palace has been managed by English Heritage since 1995 . The organization opened it to the public in 1999 after renovation work and extensive reconstruction of the park. The art deco interior is a masterpiece of modern interior design. English Heritage describes the property as one of the leading haunted castles in England, so the ghost of a former servant is said to organize castle tours at night.

History of the house from the 13th century to 1900

The Great Hall is still part of the building fabric of the historic Eltham Palace

The later palace was originally a fortified estate of the Clare family , which fell to the crown in the 13th century. Both King Henry III. like his son Edward I visited the estate before Edward I gave it to John de Vescy as a fief in 1278 . In 1295 William de Vescy inherited the estate, who in the same year sold it to Bishop Antony Bek of Durham. Bek had the property expanded and a hunting park laid out south of it. He died in Eltham in 1311, but he had previously determined that Eltham would return to the crown after his death. King Edward II gave the palace to his wife Isabelle de France . Eltham became one of her favorite residences. The palace remained in the possession of the crown and served as the residence of the English kings until the 16th century. King Edward III founded the Order of the Garter there in 1348 .

From the 1630s the house was no longer permanently inhabited by the royal family, as court life moved there after the extensive renovation and expansion of Greenwich Palace , which also offered better access to the waterways thanks to its location on the Thames had relocated. Eltham Palace with its three parks - the Great Park (2.4 km²), the Little or Middle Park , (1.3 km²) and the Home Park , also called Lee Park (1.4 km²) - and its rich game population used as a hunting lodge from this point on . The Tudor kings used to spend their Christmas holidays there. A suite was also temporarily made available to the court painter Anthonis van Dyck as a country residence.

During the English Civil War , the parks lost both their tree and game population. The architect and garden designer John Evelyn wrote in April 1656: “We drove to His Majesty's house in Eltham; Both the palace and the chapel are now only ruins, the noble forests and parks destroyed by Nathaniel Rich ” (Note: Officer in Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army ).

Charles II. Gave the Eltham baronet Best-Shaw, who is now the in the Great Hall ( English Great Hall of) and outbuildings as well as a bridge and remains of enclosure walls reduced property inhabited until 1893.

Today's Eltham Palace, built and designed in the 1930s

The garden

In 1933 the property was leased by Stephen Courtauld, younger brother of the industrialist and art patron Samuel Courtauld . At his instigation, the house was built in its current form and furnished in Art Deco style. The entrance hall with its light dome and the paneling in Australian chestnut with inlay work was designed by the Swedish interior designer Rolf Engströmer . The old Great Hall with its hammer-beam vault - the third largest of its kind on the British Isles - was integrated into the building fabric. In the garden, which has also been redesigned, remains of the foundations of older buildings can be seen, and the bridge over the moat also dates from an even older time.

The roof of the Great Hall was badly damaged in a bombing raid in 1944. The Courtauld family left Eltham Palace in 1944. From 1945 to 1992 the property was used by the Royal Army Educational Corps .

Eltham Palace as a film set

Eltham Palace is a popular film set especially for films set in the 1930s to 1950s. Also known in Germany are Death on the Nile according to Agatha Christie , Reunion with Brideshead , Churchill - The Gathering Storm , Verbrechen verführung , Revolver and the television series Hustle - Dishonest lasts the longest .

literature

  • Sophie Campbell: Eltham Palace - Inside the newly restored Greenwich time machine. In: The Daily Telegraph . Edition of March 31, 2015 ( online ).
  • John Timbs, Alexander Gunn: Abbeys, castles and ancient halls of England and Wales, their legendary lore and popular history. Volume 1: South. Frederick Warne, London 1872, pp. 129-133 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Eltham Palace  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information on Eltham Palace on the Royal Family website , accessed July 28, 2015.
  2. ↑ Jasper Copping: English Heritage reveals most haunted sites. In: The Daily Telegraph. Edition of June 27, 2009 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006. ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 30.
  4. ↑ James Dowsing: Forgotten Tudor palaces in the London area. London, Sunrise Press 2002, ISBN 978-1-873876-15-2 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 49.5 ″  N , 0 ° 2 ′ 53.7 ″  E Art Deco building in the United Kingdom